The troubled rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) is creating a digital divide in communities across Australia.

Key points:

NBN boss says 25 megabits is "sufficient for the majority"

Brisbane couple says it's often faster for them to transport data than upload it

Real estate agent says NBN connections already a selling point

NBN chief Bill Morrow has told Four Corners that high-speed fibre connections are technologically superior to the copper and cable which links most Australians to the new broadband network.

He also conceded that the fast pace of the rollout was leading to compromises and said it turned his stomach that some customers were getting left behind.

The rollout is a lottery. About one-fifth of Australians are getting direct fibre connections, but the majority are being connected with older technology such as copper phone wire and pay television cables.

The end result is that some households and businesses are unable to access the high speeds they are paying for.

And Mr Morrow is blunt — if those people want faster connections, they will have to pay for it themselves.

Internet connections becoming a selling point

In Dubbo in western New South Wales, you can drive down streets where the people on one side get fibre to their homes — which is faster and more reliable — and the people on the other side are connected with copper that limits their internet speeds.

David Hayward and his family moved into their house in East Dubbo believing that it was getting a full-fibre connection — but instead they ended up getting what is called fibre-to-the-node (FTTN).

It is the technology which is connecting the largest number of Australians to the NBN.

With a FTTN connection, the final link to the house is with copper wire stretching from a green box in the street. The longer the length of copper, the slower the available internet speeds.

Mr Hayward has been paying for the best available download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second.

But following a Four Corners enquiry, Telstra told him that the best download speed he could ever get with his connection was just 46 megabits per second.

He is worried Dubbo's digital divide may affect his property's value.

"It causes a bit of a two-class society in Dubbo when it comes to modern technology," he said.

"If I then go to sell this house and other parts have better, am I going to be disadvantaged financially because people are used to that, are they going to want to go backwards?

Ms Vance said the company has had to adopt strategies to cope with the limitations of their NBN connection.

"It can be quicker for somebody to drive from the south end of Brisbane up to the north end of Brisbane and give them builds rather than try and upload them and download them," she said.

"Our basic coping strategy at times is, 'what's the quickest way to get the data into somebody's hands?' And unfortunately, sometimes that's a car and a USB stick to do that."

Ms Vance and Mr Styles look to their competitors in New Zealand with envy.

By the time Australia's "multi-technology mix" NBN is complete, a large majority of New Zealanders will have access to direct fibre connections to their homes and businesses.

Network 'fit for purpose'

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield defends the "multi-technology" NBN as being "fit for purpose".

"Well, I think it's important to recognise that the guts of the NBN is fibre," he said.

"The NBN is a fibre-based network.

"We are, for the last component in the street, in some cases using copper … in some cases using the existing HFC pay TV cable.

"The reason we're doing that is because that really speeds up the rollout of the NBN, it really reduces the costs of the rollout of the NBN, so the guts of this is fibre and Australians will get fast speeds."

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